Josh Ruben’s Heart Eyes is so 1990s. Maybe that doesn’t matter much to you, but it means more to me than I imagined it would. Heart Eyes, scripted by slasher perennials Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy (Time Cut, Freaky, It’s a Wonderful Knife), is ostensibly just another in their line of subversive, high-concept slasher outings. And, in fairness, it often is. Much like Freaky went full horror with Mary Rodgers’ original novel, and It’s a Wonderful Knife slashed through Christmas tradition, Heart Eyes is as much a romantic comedy as it is a horror movie.
That genre hybrid is regularly refreshing and often bubblegum pop cute. The chance meeting between leads Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) is effervescent, and Heart Eyes even indulges in a solid homage to romcom shopping montages. The romance will be Heart Eyes’ legacy, and deservedly so, even if it’s the stripped-down charm of the 90s slasher stage that imbues the film with so much of its strength.
Horror fans know well that by the late 1980s, the slasher genre was waning. Low budgets and hot casts—and some power tools here and there—weren’t bringing bodies to the multiplex like they used to. Iconic franchises were becoming parodies of themselves, with Freddy Krueger going full late-night and Jason Voorhees galivanting off to New York City (Vancouver) in his eighth outing. Audiences were tired.
While Wes Craven first went full-meta with the underappreciated New Nightmare, it was his collaboration with scribe Kevin Williamson on Scream that reminded audiences that slasher movies still had more to offer. Much like Halloween or Friday the 13th, Scream incited its own wave of imitators in what’s colloquially known as the Post-Scream boom.
Those were the slasher movies I grew up with. Those were the slasher movies I excitedly hunted for at my local video rental store (Blair’s Video, FYI). I fondly remember a friend’s mom calling my mom when she caught us watching Urban Legend at a slumber party. My mom’s response? He’s seen it. See if you have the sequel.
Cherry Falls, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Valentine, Bride of Chucky, Halloween: H20, Lover’s Lane, Shredder, The Pool, and countless sequels to several of those titles. Slasher movies were everywhere. They were fresh and self-aware in a way the previous decade’s movies weren’t. They often cast burgeoning hot stars. Heart Eyes’ Jordana Brewster’s first feature credit was in 1998’s The Faculty.
They were rarely scary (Scream might be the only one to successfully balance irony and earnest terror), but they were fun. Today’s slasher movies can be, though they’re often too committed to their own conceit, too intent on being clever, to really cultivate the throwback charm the subgenre’s last great decade had in spades. Scream (2022) was a decent stab at righting wrongs, but Scream 6 was very much a 2023 slasher movie. You’re Next is a classic, though there’s no denying it subverts expectations rather than leaning into them hard. In a Violent Nature is refreshingly experimental, though it’s not exactly slumber party material. And the recent revival of Michael Myers? Well…
Which is fine. Slasher movies need to evolve and grow. However, save for the spare Party Hard, Die Young, the earnest masked maniac has been absent since 2009’s My Bloody Valentine. The tropes that we know and love have been replaced with detachment and self-awareness. Heart Eyes, for all its lovey-dovey romance, is purely 1990s slasher caper.
The tropes are all there. Ruben is effective behind the camera, lending Heart Eyes the kind of tactile throwdowns and chases the genre used to thrive on. Glass shatters. Doors splinter (we even get a surprise knife through the door, a classic beat). There are two exceptional chase scenes, the best of which tracks Ally through a botanical garden and a decrepit carnival. There’s weight to the slasher antics, some good old-fashioned running, screaming, and hiding. Scream (2022) had one brief, baby chase. Scream 6? Gale Weathers kind of got one, but nothing akin to her Scream 2 sound booth escape. Where’s the Urban Legend: Final Cut pursuit through the recording studio energy?
Heart Eyes’ kills are gory, but not gross. The final reveal is nonsense in the best “Benson? Ben’s son” kind of way. There’s an incredulous monologue that gives the heroes enough time to plan their final attack. It’s all firmly 1990s and lovingly so. Today’s slasher movies, like most genres, are keen on being part of the joke. For fear an audience might preempt them with some CinemaSins nonsense, they’re poking holes in themselves just to say they did it first.
It’s akin to saying “We know this is dumb and isn’t going to scare you,” though the sentiment is a vacuum for earnestness. Is it really scary when Tara Reid is chased through the radio station in Urban Legend? No, not really. But Urban Legend thinks it is, and that energy is infectious. I still hold my breath, and there’s still a pang of sadness as she makes one final plea for her life. I can’t imagine a modern slasher movie reveling in sincerity that much to permit such a beat again.
Luckily, however, Heart Eyes does. Yes, it’s knowingly goofy, but it never comes at the expense of sincere efforts to get tactile and fun. Maybe the jumps won’t work for you (though a few did for me). Maybe you’ll roll your eyes as Ally calls out, “Who’s there?” in an abandoned police station. Heart Eyes knows you might, but it’s going to lean hard into those beats anyway. Like a killer popping up out of nowhere, Heart Eyes feels like it simply emerged from another decade entirely. A fun slasher that’s earnest in its attempt to take itself, and its characters, seriously? I’ll take one theatrical sequel and a direct-to-video trilogy capper, please.
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